


When the Day Met the Night

by thedeviltohisangel



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28178376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeviltohisangel/pseuds/thedeviltohisangel
Summary: There was a gentle, almost timid, knock on the door and it silenced all the women instantly. They were all in their nightgowns, some with curlers they had pilfered from the Austrian homes, and all of them passing around the most delectable red wine they’d ever been in the presence of. It felt like what they were used to.
Relationships: Ronald Speirs/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	When the Day Met the Night

There was a gentle, almost timid, knock on the door and it silenced all the women instantly. They were all in their nightgowns, some with curlers they had pilfered from the Austrian homes, and all of them passing around the most delectable red wine they’d ever been in the presence of. It felt like what they were used to. Giggles and blushing and whispering about the men that were in the houses around them. It was in the middle of Barbara’s story about the Sergeant in Able Company that the knock sounded.

“Maybe it’s him!” They all huddled together as Barbara stood and opened the door, the sly smirk on her face faltering once she did.

“Sir! Did someone get hurt?” They all craned their necks to try and catch a glimpse of the officer that was standing there.

“No, I was wondering if Violet was around.” 

“One moment. I’ll check.” Barbara shut the door carefully and turned to face the group. “It’s Captain Spiers,” she whispered. They all turned to look at Violet, giddy smiles spreading across their faces. Her own followed suit. 

“How do I look?” She stood quickly and spun as the women came closer to inspect her.

“Beautiful! But you need a robe!” It would be quite the scandal for a man to see her skin in the way the nightgown exposed it. On the other side of the door, Ron was wondering if he had come at a bad time. If he had interrupted...well whatever it was that a group of women would be during right now. Talking? Casting spells? Just as he was opening his mouth to announce he’d come back another time, the door creaked open.

“Hi.” Well, everything felt better just like that.

“Hi,” he whispered back. Just her face was showing through the crack of the door, a robe haphazardly thrown around her shoulders was slipping just enough that his mouth ran dry with the possibilities of touching her skin where he shouldn’t.

“Everyone is fleeing into their rooms, then I can let you in.” His eyes flickered above her head where the blurry shapes of bodies were flying past.

“Fleeing?”

“To give us our privacy,” she teased. Privacy. That was something neither had truly had since before Pearl Harbor. Since before enlisting. Since before basic and Normandy and Holland and all the other hell holes they had marched into.

“I don’t know what that is anymore,” he mused. Violet found it hard to stay standing anytime he looked at her. The way his eyes zeroed in like she was an oasis in the desert. She turned to see a thumbs up from the last nurse slipping into her room, the door finally opening up to Ron fully.

“Well, me having my own room is as close as we can get.” He stepped into the apartment that had been given to the women for their time in Austria. Everyone had agreed keeping them sequestered was the appropriate move. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t go if he was invited to. She led him down the hall and into a room that looked like he imagined it would. In the back of his mind on the cold nights in his foxhole when he told himself deliriousness really was sinking in if he was thinking about the future. Thinking about a future with her in it. Why would he be deserving of such a thing? Why would he be selfish enough to drag her down with him?

“What’s this?” he inquired pointing towards the rifle that was propped against her nightstand.

“If the men are getting drunk enough to run over each other, imagine what they’d do to us. To me.” There had been plenty of comments and looks thrown her way over the years that made her skin crawl. That almost made her quit and return home. No matter how tired and cold they all were, no matter how many of them she had stitched back together, she would always be lesser than them. A girl playing dress up. A girl who’d get put in her place if she tried to find a spot in this world.

“I’d kill them before they got the chance to even think about it.” There was nothing playful in his tone nor his eyes. And she knew he was right.

“I know,” she whispered as she closed the distance between them and cupped the back of his head. Ron was already reserving himself to standing outside her door every night to make sure of it. “Don’t let those thoughts ruin tonight.” Throughout the entire war, since the moment they met even before it turned into what it was, they had sought each other for comfort. The moment they locked eyes the world stopped and stilled. It grew peaceful and content and warm and safe. She didn’t want anything to ruin that. Ruin the sacred place between them that they had built.

“It gets harder everyday to compartmentalize. Gets harder everyday to pretend I’m not screaming inside. That you aren’t the only thing that can soothe my soul.” Everyone knew about them but no one spoke about it. The boys of Easy, who she had been with since the beginning, wanted nothing for her but happiness. And if that came in the form of Speirs, then so be it. If anyone deserved a smile on their face, it was Violet.

“Then talk to me about happy things. Like Boston.” He huffed out a laugh.

“Like Boston.” 

“Yeah. I’ve only been once. Tell me how it looks through your eyes.” Unconsciously, they had begun swaying like they were at a dance. It was a beat only the two of them could hear. A beat they had created with their hearts.

“Well, I used to love when it snowed. Not sure if I will anymore. Me and some other boys used to play hockey on the pond. I remember, even though it was so cold, I couldn’t feel it. I was so excited to be with them and playing and…” She let his words sit between them without a response. She knew what he was going through. The danger of remembering a simpler time. The danger of letting oneself be happy and let their guard down.

“You’ll learn to love snow again, Ron. I promise.” He didn’t respond, instead leaning down to kiss her. It had always been easier for him to get his emotions across through actions. Whether it was anger through killing Germans or love by touching her softly and kissing her hungrily. She sighed into his lips and relaxed against him, letting him absorb her fully. 

“Did you like Boston? The one time you went?”

“I did. We stayed right by the harbor. And ate the most delicious food. If only I had known there were such handsome men…”

“And none of them are worthy of you. Never will be.” There was complete sincerity in his tone. And she knew he was referring to himself as well. She didn’t need to ask.

“Is that where you’re going to go once this is all over? Back to Boston?” 

“Where are you going to go?” She thinks he was deflecting but she didn’t push.

“I got a letter that the theater is willing to accept me back when I get home. I’ll be back in New York.” Her mother would no doubt be thrilled to hear it. That her daughter, tarnishing the society image by covering herself in blood and mud and associating with foul-mouthed men, would return home and be welcomed back as a ballerina. One people paid good money to see.

“That’s where you belong,” he said quietly. And Ron knew what he said was true. People didn’t shine the way she did just to retreat to the background. They didn’t change every life they touched just to have their names resigned. They weren’t born to live in foxholes and never know stability. She deserved the prosperous, golden life that New York could give her. That he couldn’t. Not in Boston, not anywhere. He was abrasive and temperamental and didn’t know how to be careful with anything let alone something so beautiful in it’s delicacy.

“You’re staying with the men?” She figured Ron was never going to have the courage to break her heart. She would do it for him.

“Easy, they’re a special group. I wouldn’t want someone ruining them. Getting them killed over in Japan.”

“Of course,” she nodded as if she agreed. As if she understood. As if she expected Ron to change who he was for her. 

“Otherwise I’d…I’d…” He wanted to say he’d be in New York. That if he wasn’t so good at being a monster he’d be with her. He’d try to fit in. For her. Only for her.

“I know,” she whispered with tears shining in her eyes. “We have to leave a lot of things behind.” But she knew she wouldn’t. Couldn’t leave him behind.

“I didn’t come here tonight to do this, Violet, I promise.” Ron stepped back from her embrace and ran his hand roughly down his face trying to wake himself up from this nightmare.

“You don’t owe me anything, Ron. You’ve given me more than I ever hoped for.” He looked away from her. All of a sudden he couldn’t breathe. His chest was heaving and the world was spinning. She was crying and it was his fault and he was committing to a life without her. The only thing Ron Speirs had been afraid of since the aid station in Carentan. 

“I love you. I love you so much and it paralyzes me sometimes. I love you and I don’t know how to be in love. I don’t know how to be someone you can rely on. I don’t know how to be a stabilizing presence in anyone’s life and I sure as hell don’t know what to do with peace.”

“So stay. Stay with Easy and jump into Tokyo. I’ll go to New York and I’ll wait for you. I’ll go wherever Ike tells you to go afterwards. I don’t know how to be in love either, Ron, but I know it’s not something you’re meant to figure out on your own. It’s not supposed to be easy if it’s worth it. You may not think so but you’re fucking worth it. You’re worth it.” In two strides he was wrapped around her again. He crushed her against him with a ferocity that could only be described as carnal. Ronald Speirs prided himself in never behaving like a fool but he felt like trying to live a life without her and her love would have been the most foolish act of all.

“I can’t live without you,” he gasped as the robe slipped off her frame completely. As more of her was exposed to him than ever before. “I can’t be a good leader, a good man, without you.”

“You have me, you have me, you have me,” she chanted as she held him against her like she would a life raft in the ocean. He kissed down her neck and across her collarbone, his hands moving to grip under her thighs. They didn’t need words, her little jump just enough for him to lift her and her legs to come around his waist. Her back landed on the bed, their lips never breaking as he settled over her. 

“I want you so bad,” he whispered as he body took over, trailing kisses over her nightgown and down her stomach. “But not like this.” The first time they were intimate together was not going to be in a boarding house in Austria on the eve of the Japanese invasion. She deserved better. He would give her better. Violet whined and he chuckled.

“You’ve gotten me all worked up for nothing.”

“You’re not used to it by now?” She slapped his arm playfully. 

“I’m going to miss it. You and all the others not tiptoeing around me. Not judging me when I make a crude joke.” He chuckled around the cigarette he had just put into his mouth. “I’m worried I won’t fit in back home anymore. That high society won’t have me. That my mother’s opinion of me is damaged beyond repair.”

“Fuck her.”

“Ronald!”

“I mean it. Fuck her, fuck high society. Fuck all of it. No one should make you feel ashamed for what you’ve done over here. For having the courage to do it in the first place. They should consider themselves lucky to know you.” He knows he did.

“You know, if you say all that to her it won’t make a good first impression.” She rolled over so she was on top of him now. Her smile was devious but also pure happiness. Ron and her would be together even after this place. They’d always be.

“What if you go home and have a ring on your finger?” She froze. He thinks the whole world did. “Marry me, Violet. It’s going to happen one day so why not now? Why not go our separate ways tied to each other?” If Ron was going to die in Japan, he wanted to die belonging to her. Maybe that way he’d see her again once it was all over. She just giggled.

“You mean that?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes!” she screamed as he snuffed out the cigarette and wiggled his fingers into her side, her laughter waking the whole house if they weren’t up eavesdropping already. “Stop! Stop that tickles!” He relented with a final kiss, her breathlessness and flushed cheeks making her look like her life had not been touched by the tragedy it had.

“Mrs. Speirs,” he whispered as he smoothed her hair back from her face.

“Sounds like it’s meant to be,” she replied just as softly and with as much conviction as she had ever said anything. Life was good. But like anything in Europe, it never was for long.

**Author's Note:**

> accepting prompts and requests for this pairing!


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